NORDIC VR: PANEL DISCUSSION

Over a little more than a year, Silicon Vikings has had two great events on VR, with a US and global focus. But we now thought we would focus more narrowly, and see whether the Nordics can follow up on their considerable success on the gaming front in recent years (with great exits, and lots of growth) and build globally competitive VR companies. We know lots of interesting things are emerging, and this session will highlight the most interesting and innovative developments, and we will have a panel discussion with VR industry leaders (see below). We will also have a number of short pitches by some Swedish VR companies, and our panelists will give them some brief feedback.

Here is the lineup for the event, which will take place at great venue of Unity Technologies in SF:

Panel Discussion--with the following panelists:

Tommy Palm--a Swedish Entrepreneur and Game Designer. He is currently the CEO of Resolution Games and one of the people behind Candy Crush Saga.

Tony Parisi--Head of AR/VR Strategy at Unity Technologies. Tony is one of the VR industry's early pioneers (including with his VRML work), and recently joined Unity Technologies.

Sheridan Tatsuno--Co-founder of One Reality AB. The company--focused on the use of VR for sustainable city planning, among other applications (the initial focus on the Oresund region of Sweden and Denmark)--was recently launched after receiving funding.

Hilmar Pétursson--CEO and founder CCP Games. Previously spent five years as Chairman of the Board of The Technology Development Fund of Iceland (part of the Ministry of Industry).

Damon Hernandez--Moderator. Damon has been involved in the interactive 3D community for many years, and is a 3D Web, virtual and augmented reality developer and advocate. He is leading a VR Hackathon in Stavanger, Norway on Dec 2-4, where VR developers from the Nordics and other European countries will be participating. Damon is co-founder of the high tech building company IDEAbuilder, advocates 3D Web open standards for the Web3D Consortium, and regularly leads hacking sessions around the world focused on either improving built environment related professions (AEC Hackathon) or developing with immersive technologies like virtual and augmented reality.